ADDICTION

Disclaimer – Gilmore Girls don't belong to me. If I did, Lorelai never would've slept with Chris, let alone married the guy and Rory and Logan wouldn't have broken up for good at the end of the season. But if this Gilmore Girls Telemovie comes to pass, depending on how it goes I may forgive the shows creators for leaving it in the hands of David Rosenthal which ruined it all.

Summary - Addiction can be deadly and the road it leads you down can be even deadlier. Trory. Told from Louise's POV.

WARNING: Extremely AU!!! A story about drug addiction. Contains Rory/Tristan, Louise/Logan and brief mentions of Steph/Collin and Paris/Finn.

Necessary Background Information - Chris and Lorelai got married when they had Rory, so Rory grew up in Hartford, next door to Louise, and thus they became best friends. Tristan & Steph are step-brother and sister. Paris & Logan are brother and sister. (Honor and Madeline were not used as they did not fit appropriately for this story)

Reviews – Thank you to: trorygirl, just hidden, photobooth romance, skate4cancer, nk-number1actress, Curley-Q, Beautiful Deceit, Nicole Kathrine, ggfan01, LoVe23, Alison, JustLikeAGilmore, enviedxl0ve, max.logan, Princess Mel, veronicalogan, bubz22, darcy007, Meredith McDreamy, darkvixen06, corruptedchic, jmulafferty23, starshine34 & :D.

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ADDICTION

Chapter 4 – Changes and Routines

For the following months, things started changing. I don't exactly know how they changed, but they did. It's just one of those things … One day my life was normal and boring…the next … it was free.

I started wearing eye-liner. In massive amounts. I kind of liked the way it made my eyes look all smoky and dark. I didn't look so plain.

Even now, after rehab and therapy, I can't seem to break the habit. There's something oddly comforting about the look of black eyeliner. You control it, you have to apply it. If you smudge it up, it's your own damn fault, but you can still fix it. It makes your eyes appear older then they are which is a good thing.

Let's face it, I may be 19, but I'm so much older in so many ways.

Rory changed too. Don't get me wrong, she had already started to change the minute she walked into that room and first laid eyes on Tristan. But it was more than that. She didn't abuse eyeliner like Steph and I did, but she changed. Her wardrobe went from warm and timid to sleek, sophisticated, and dark. She was starting to pull away from me, but I was so wrapped up in my own love life with Logan that I barely even noticed. She started skipping out on her school work and her usual reading pleasures. She kept more to herself and we stopped having our marathon phone conversations. She was defensive and slightly colder. I don't know if it was the drugs or Tristan.

Oh yeah … I guess this would probably be a good time to mention that I started with what I like to call "experimentation." Rory and I both, actually. Nothing too major at first, you know just a little weed, a few pills here and there, and inhalants. Just stuff to send you off. We were in Hartford. It's not like we could get any hardcore stuff.

Drugs were the glue of my existence. No, I take that back; Logan and drugs were the glue of my existence. I really didn't notice how awful my life had been until I started. Why bother with school when you could just melt it away with one quick drag?

My days all melded together in one beautiful blend of color. I'd spend my day at school with my friends, skipping half the time, then we'd all drive over to Tristan and Steph's apartment that afternoon. We didn't get high all the time. Sometimes, we just got drunk.

Rory and Tristan were quite busy. That was apparent. He couldn't walk around without his shirt on anymore, without someone making a joke about the obvious scratch marks on his back. Any guy even looked at Rory in school, he'd threaten to kill them and slam them against the locker. He worshipped her, adored her, loved her. And that made her his. And everyone in school knew it.

It sounds so pathetic, but we were a family. My other family just wanted me to be this perfect girl, but these guys … they accepted me as I was. I think it was the same for Rory. We didn't have to get perfect grades and be perfect little socialites to hang out with them. We just had to be ourselves. I just had to be me. I had to be Louise.

I tried explaining that to my mother (you know, before she sent me to therapy) and she just looked at me with these sad eyes. "Honey," she told me. "This isn't who you are! How can you even think that?" I just rolled my eyes at her, of course. What the hell does she know? Just because she gave birth to me doesn't mean she all of a sudden knows me. I mean for christ's sake for the first 5 years of my life I thought the maid was my mother.

But my friends … they cared for me. They gave me the drugs that made me feel important. And don't you dare say there was no connection there. There was. And it was magical.

"I love you guys!" Finn panted his back on the floor, his forehead covered in sweat.

Steph let out a long exhale, her face relaxed into a look of pure rapture. "Hell yes!" she hissed out, taking another drag then leaning back to rest her head on Finn's stomach.

Paris was staring at the curtains fluttering in the fan as if they were the most beautiful creations on earth, floating back and forth, like tie-dyed angels. There were tears in her golden brown eyes, I'm positive. She claimed, later, that it was the smoke. But I think she saw something.

Logan was running his hands through my blonde hair, relishing its softness. I was caught up in the softness of his hands running through my hair, and watching the beauty that was Tristan and Rory, slowly discovering each other's skin, each other's heart, each other's soul piece by piece.

All of us, united. It was a wonderful thing. Sure, it was never as good as the first time, but I kept thinking "you know, if I try this and this … " Still, it made me feel good. My life had taken off.

My friends took over my life.

Steph breathed in a long, exalted breath of the thick grey air and started to play with her own curly hair. "This is fantastic," she purred softly, her eyes fluttering shut.

There's always one drawback to drugs, you have to come off of it eventually.

But when we sobered up, at least we were always there. All seven of us.

Every Friday we'd go to a party. It was our tradition. Tristan and Rory would grind away, wrapped up solely in each other. Logan and I honestly weren't any better, as we would sit in a corner and make out, stopping only for air and the occasional beverage or joint. Paris would get totally cocked and start making out with random guys. Steph, the gorgeous girl that she was would get so incredibly loaded she allowed people to pay her for lap dances; and Finn would kind of sit in the middle of it all, and just smile this huge, drug induced smile.

It was at one of these parties that we stumbled on what we would soon call the downfall of our existence.

It was at one of these parties where we discovered our savior.

Crack cocaine. It's a beautiful thing.

I remember it so vividly. God, it makes my entire body shake with want it just thinking about it.

Steph looked so pretty. Short denim mini skirt and a barely there tank top, with her curly, silky blonde hair piled on top of her head. Not the ideal outfit for a table dance, but she had been seen in worst.

So there she was, on a table dancing her heart out, shaking everything she had been born with as if someone was going to take it all away from her. She succeeded in becoming the music, her body pulsating with the beat.

You know when everything just slows down and goes into slow motion? That's what happened. I might have been high, but still.

At the same time all this happened, a man was watching her.

You'd call him a boy, but he wasn't. He was a man.

His name was Colin McCrae.

Rory's cousin.

Good ol' Colin, who previously I deemed a juvenile delinquent unfit for society, was now my fellow lost soul, and was looking incredibly fine in his black leather jacket and his pierced eyebrow.

"Grant?" He screeched at me, tearing his eyes away from Steph for an instant. "You and Rory are here?"

I nodded at him and took another drag. Bliss. Pure bliss.

He surveyed the new me with a sexy grin, his eyes traveling up and down by body. "I like," he replied honestly. "It works for you," I smiled slightly.

"You like my friend Steph?" I asked coolly, tearing my eyes away from his to jerk my chin in her direction.

His chocolate brown eyes gleamed with deep interest. "You know her?" He replied, nonchalantly, trying not to betray his feelings. But I knew better.

"We're really close," I told him, matter-of-factly.

"Want to introduce me?"

And then it was done. I had all but written out a contract for our destinies and presented each one of my friends with the pen.

Every other therapist I've been to stops me right there and tell me not to blame myself. That it's not my fault.

Yeah, that's bullshit.

Hell yes it's my fault. It's my fault for introducing them. I should have told Colin to get lost. It's not like he could do anything for me anyways.

But I didn't. I took him up to Steph, pulled her down from her high perch, and introduced her to the man.

The man that she would love.

The man that introduced us to our new best friend.

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